The rule about child acquisitions was similarly rooted in practical concerns. These were by far the most sought after but were only targeted sparingly and usually only under strict selection protocols. While very easy to force compliance upon and transport them, they were both fragile and volatile.
Fragile because the means of compliance, if roughly or overly administered, could damage or even invalidate the acquisition, which brought its own complications. Volatile because while the domestic connections of a mature acquisition only noticed their absence after an extended period of time—sometimes days—children disappearing could, depending on the area, spark a search within minutes. As a result, they were only undertaken when there was a specific viable target and the compensation was commensurate with the special attention required.
Yet Masheed intended to take not one, but two who she would find while in the field without proper approval for a payout that would be the same as if they were mature acquisitions.
Despite their nightly matriarch’s words, all of them knew a plan so flagrant was not about compensation but control. By the end of the night, Crim would be faced with a tangible affront to his authority, which would tip the dominoes so confrontation was inevitable. This was the beginning of a coup and as the conspiratorial energy flowed through the group, they responded with darting eyes and half-formed smiles. All of this told Masheed that she had nothing to fear.
Although rightly nervous, they were with her.
“We have five acquisitions to make tonight since the increase, so we’ll take the first three from the Tin Quarter itself,” she said and affected an unconcerned but erudite air. “After those are loaded on the wagon, we’ll move to the caravan in the stockyard. You will all act as secondary assessors while Sohrab and I make the acquisition.”
Sohrab, her current transporter and part-time lover, leered at the rest of the clan. While an efficient if unsubtle distractor and as strong as an ox, he couldn’t quite understand that no one envied his place beside their daring matron. If anything were to go wrong, it was most likely to be at the outset of this gambit and none of them relished the idea of being in the midst of a situation that had gone awry.
Masheed ignored them and leaned forward to draw their eyes and attention to her.
“Tonight is the night that changes everything,” she stated coldly and her eyes glittered. “We will show everyone that no one and nothing in this city is safe.”
Chapter Eight
The spectral spear point lanced through the wine-soddened mists of her dreaming mind and pierced her breast.
As soon as she felt the phantom steel split the skin, she knew something was wrong, but it wasn’t until the tip nipped at the heart hammering in her breast that she understood why.
It didn’t happen this way, she thought blearily as the phantasmal crowd below moaned with a single, aching voice. I deflected that thrust. I almost didn’t but I know I did.
“We wish you hadn’t,” her father’s voice intoned, even deeper and more sepulchral as a dream-shade. “We wish your hand had faltered and he spitted you as you deserved.”
She snarled and rage and sorrow choked any rational words, but she could not stoop below the dais to reach him. The ghostly shaft of the spear held her fast.
“We wish you had died that day,” her mother added, her voice so sharp and acidic that it stung both her ear and her brain. “We wish our shame had ended with you.”
“Morah circles!” the crowd chanted and their voices rose in reflexive exultation. “We welcome her passing shadow.”
She grasped the haft of the spear which should not have protruded from her chest and laughed because she knew what came next. Blood so bright that it glowed with an internal fire rose into her mouth and spattered down her chest.
“No wonder we are damned.” She chuckled, unable to shake the horrible humor that recognized that her words had been fitting, no matter what the outcome. “The gods tarried too long.”
“I suppose I asked for this.” The intimate, silken whisper of her opponent came in reply, his visage a murky blur at the other end of the spear. “One way or another, it had to be this way.”
“Morah comes!” the crowd roared, unable to shake the fervor that doomed them.
Her fingers tightened around the haft of the weapon and her words rose to her tongue like the blazing blood that welled inside her as a burning tide.
“It’s too late to turn back now.” She shrugged and a smile strained at the corners of her mouth as she drew the spear deeper into herself.
The ethereal steel sank into her heart, a cold, merciless fire, and the fiery blood erupted from her like a fountain.
On her hands and knees, Ax-Wed retched a veritable torrent in the stuttering light of embers.
She lurched onto her haunches and recoiled weakly from the putrid puddle that soaked into the soil. It was not the blazing blood from her dreams but by the gods, her throat and nose burned as if it were. She felt a desperate urge to pull away from the stench of the stomach-churned wine but it was all she could do to keep her trembling limbs from betraying her. It seemed certain that if she moved a muscle, she would pitch face-first into her filth.
“Are you ill?” a small voice asked from across the cinders.
Even her shaky arms locked in abashed terror as she raised her eyes from the vomit to where Jalen stood across from her, his brow furrowed with sincere concern.
“I’m fine,” she rasped and paused when her stomach clenched in open rebellion to the declaration. “It’s only something I ate. I—”
Despite her efforts, another wave of bilious alcohol heaved up and out so her clenching only made it more painful. She expelled every last thing in her stomach and as if to punctuate its irritation with her, her entire body twisted with a series of dry heaves before she finally felt a release. With a defeated groan, she managed to stand but tottered and collapsed to one side, missing her mess by luck more than anything else.
“You don’t look fine,” he remarked gravely and his hands fiddled with the drawstrings of his breeches. “Are you sick or something?”
Ax-Wed didn’t bother to answer but did manage, with an embarrassing amount of effort, to lean against the wall. The motion made her head swim and left her gulping air down her raw throat, but she was seated upright and had put a little distance between herself and the steaming pool. Shame, guilt, and a considerable amount of alcohol robbed her of coherent thoughts, but at least she could breathe without the searing stench burning her nostrils.
“What are you doing?” another voice asked from the night and a second later, Julo’s face appeared, his eyes huge and terrified. “I could throttle you, wandering off like that! If Pap—”
“The big lady’s sick,” Jalen said and cut his brother off as he pointed to Ax-Wed. “I think she’s got the Blight.”
Julo recoiled at the mention of the enervating malady but he soon smelled the scent of liquor-infused effluence and saw the pool of evidence shimmering in the firelight.
“It’s not the Blight,” he said, old enough to recognize what had occurred.
He didn’t fully understand the nature or appeal of alcohol yet, but he at least understood that it was compromising for any adult to be found in such a condition. Pap was not a drunkard as a matter of course but the boy was old enough to remember a few feast days when his father had over-indulged. His eldest son was left to help get him to bed as his mother was seven years dead and the new wife wouldn’t touch him when he was inebriated.
A swell of pity and dread fascination swept over him as he watched the titanic warrior woman drag in each labored breath while she stared at him with glazed, bloodshot eyes.
“The Pox, then?” Jalen asked and began to tug on the drawstrings now in his agitation. “Or maybe the Flux?”
Julo and Ax-Wed continued to stare at each other until the younger boy grew impatient and punched his brother’s arm with his free hand.
“Ouch! Er…no,” he replied as he cuff
ed his brother distractedly. “She doesn’t have the Pox or the Flux either.”
“The Yax?” Jalen pressed and yanked fiercely on the drawstrings.
“No, it’s not…wait, the Yax?” He looked at his little brother with a suspicious squint. “You made that one up.”
The other boy shrugged. “It sounds bad, though, doesn’t it?”
Julo agreed that it sounded awful and was certainly a suitable name for a horrible disease, but he wasn’t about to tell his brother that.
“What are you doing up anyway?”
Jalen seemed locked in a life-or-death struggle with his britches now.
“I had to pee.”
“Well, did you go?” he asked but already knew the answer to his question.
His brother shook his head vigorously.
“I heard her saying something,” he said and nodded quickly at Ax-Wed. “And then she was puking everywhere and I asked her if she was sick and she said she was fine and—”
“Go pee,” Julo said impatiently and pointed down the length of the wall to the latrines.
“And then she said she was fine and I thought she didn’t look fine and I wondered if she had the Pox,” the little boy continued and twisted savagely at his strings as though they were binding him to his story. “And then you came.”
“Janus’ balls,” he snapped. “Go pee, Jalen!”
His brother scuttled a few steps toward the latrines but halted his retreat to deliver his Parthian shot.
“I’m telling Pap you swore when we get home,” he announced.
“And I’m telling him you wet yourself like a baby when I paddled your butt,” the elder brother warned and took a menacing step forward. “Go. Pee.”
Turning on his heel with an air of righteous indignation, Jalen executed his withdrawal.
Despite her miserable condition, Ax-Wed managed a chuckle.
“Sorry about him,” Julo said and lowered his head as his cheeks flushed. “I’ll get you some water.”
She made to wave the offer off but only managed to flail her arm when she almost lost her balance.
“I’m…uh, f-fine,” she stammered and sounded utterly unconvincing, even to herself.
“I know. Jalen told me,” he said with a little shake of his head. “But you’re also drunk and when Pap gets drunk, water seems to help.”
The Thulian wanted to argue but words suddenly seemed very hard to put together. She held one finger up and everything became soft around the edges as she tried to collect herself. In the next moment, he was gone.
“Well,” she muttered and eventually succeeded in raising a hand to wipe her mouth. “I can't argue with that, can I?”
What seemed like eons of indeterminate time later, Julo reappeared and hurried to her side with a ladle in his hand. Before she could argue, he’d raised it to her lips and the night-cooled water washed away the acrid film from her mouth. She coughed once and he drew the ladle back as he patted her on the back.
“It will help,” he said. “Drink it slowly.”
Ax-Wed nodded, followed his advice, and finished what was left in the ladle. Despite any protest she might have raised, the boy wasn’t wrong. She already felt better.
“Good boy.” She groaned and let her head sag against the wall. “Your Pap’s a lucky man.”
Julo smiled at the compliment but when he met the woman’s eyes, sheer terror filled his gaze and he looked away. In her current condition, she couldn’t decide if his fear was caused by her scarred face or the fact that the boy, on the edge of manhood, had looked a woman in the eye. Either way, she found it all inordinately funny.
She began to chuckle but then saw the wounded anger on the boy’s face and stopped immediately.
“Thank you, Julo.” She sighed and extended an unsteady hand to squeeze his shoulder.
He winced, first from the woman’s foul breath and then from the strength of her grasp but did his best to answer her gratitude with a smile.
“Here,” he instructed, shifted her hand from his shoulder, and pointed to a half-filled bucket that had appeared beside her leg. “Keep drinking.”
Ax-Wed frowned as the boy rose and looked across the darkened stockyard.
“Where are you going?” she asked and let the ladle in her hand sink into the bucket.
“To find Jalen,” he explained. “Sometimes, he can’t get his breeches tied and he’s been gone for a while.”
The warrior woman nodded sagely and looked at him with a warm smile.
“You’re a good big brother.”
Even in the half-light of the dying fire, she could see the blush creep up the boy’s ears.
“Keep drinking,” he said as he moved toward the latrine. “We’ll both come back to check on you before we go to bed.”
She nodded and with some effort but less each time, raised the ladle to her lips and took sips of cold water.
How could I be so stupid? The question compelled her to contemplate the congealing evidence of over-indulgence. What is wrong with me?
Shame and anger flooded over her in equal measure, leaving her flushed and feeling a sickness that had nothing to do with her stomach. She turned her gaze from the vomit sharply enough to make her neck pop and the world spin and saw the flaccid wineskin laying a few feet away. With a disgusted hiss, she threw the ladle into the bucket beside her with a splash. Tears threatened to trace hot tracks down her face, but she denied them reflexively and desperately willed the icy shell to form around her aching heart.
Did anyone else see?
She looked through bleary eyes and didn’t notice any movement in the stockyard. Across the way, she noticed a fire where a few of the men were standing watch but none seemed to be looking at her.
What will they think when Julo or Jalen tell them? What use is a sell-sword who gets vomiting drunk at the first opportunity?
For an instant, her mind entertained what kind of promises could buy the brothers’ silence. When nothing came to mind, she wondered what threats might work better.
What is wrong with me?
The light of the fire seemed to shrink and she felt for a moment that the deepening darkness wasn’t only in the exterior world.
Is this the curse or is this only me?
The thought scraped and tore at the few tender places left in her but before the damage became too significant, the ice crept in and a practiced and familiar numbness settled in.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself and squeezed her eyes shut to will the unshed tears away. You're damned either way.
She looked around the tents, wagons, and wains that bore the sleeping members of the caravans all blissfully unaware of her humiliation. Yet, come first light as they stirred to make ready, word would begin to spread and the looks of disgust—or even worse, pity—would spread and hem her in. Their kindness would curdle into fear at what she might do or they would sneer at her weaknesses.
Either way, the answer was clear. She couldn’t stay for things to go that way.
It hollowed her out to think of creeping off in the dark like a thief but she knew from experience that facing them the next morning would be worse.
This is your life and this is who you are. They rot out from under you or you ruin them with your weakness. Either way, this is your path. This is your Road.
With a will born of a fatalistic knot of self-hatred, Ax-Wed forced herself to straighten and knocked the bucket over when she took a step. The water spewed across the ground, a narrowing stream of liquid that plunged into the fire embers. With an angry hiss, steam rose and the veil of night descended on the small island of light that had been hers only moments before.
It’s just as well, she mused grimly. Darkness for dark business.
As quietly as she could, she gathered her things by the light of the stars and the narrow moon and almost lost her balance twice, which made her realize she was still quite drunk. As such, she couldn’t bring herself to secure her helm, uncertain that her pounding head could be
ar it, so it rested gingerly on the dome of her skull. For a moment, she swore she heard the pulse of her head against the lining of the battered skull bucket and was forced to hold very still and let herself adjust to the altered pitch of the pain.
The hammering subsided for a moment but became almost crippling when she dragged her pack closer and tried to haul it onto her back. After she’d almost tumbled for the third time and had to subsequently reseat her helm, she drew her ax and planted its haft in the dusty ground.
With the support of her improvised wooden leg, she managed to get it on her back and raised her eyes to look one last time at the life that could have been hers. Perhaps it was only the wine, but she felt a pain keener than she had when she’d fled Xhultheno, the city of her birth and one of the last great bastions of her people.
She’d left that beautiful, unholy city with her heart breaking but certain that she was right. Now, her heart was breaking and she had no such solace, only the cold certainty that she had no other choice.
Her regrets didn’t have the decency to wait for her to make it beyond the wall of the stockyard. As she started to move toward the gate, she began to think about all the lives she’d felt entwined with in only a few hours—Durra, Numi, Vahrem, Iyshan, and the boys.
The boys… Didn’t Julo say he would come back?
A chill ran through Ax-Wed as she looked across the dark yard to the shadowed place at the wall where the latrines were.
Why aren’t they back yet?
She squinted into the shadows and her stomach twisted anew as a single word crawled across her mind.
“Snatchers,” she whispered before she rushed toward the latrine.
Chapter Nine
Things were not going as planned.
Masheed handed the second boy to Sohrab as sweat dripped into her eyes and triggered a hiss of pained irritation. As she wiped it away, a huge armored figure stumbled into the latrines.
This was not how she’d envisioned the night’s events.
Circle In The Deep (The Outcast Royal Book 1) Page 8